Poker News: World Poker Tour - Championship, Day Three

Poker News: World Poker Tour - Championship, Day Three:

The field for the WPT Championship all started in the same room for the first time since this tournament began. This made things much easier on the tournament stuff, not to mention the journalists (like me) who had been hustling from room to room to cover the tournament properly.

But 164 players started today, and everyone had dreams of the $2.8 million top prize. All but 64 players will get paid today, and that certainly makes things a lot easier on the bigger stacks, who know they probably have some room to work. The shorter stacks were going to move quickly, but the average chip count relative to the blinds was such that we would not see the mass exodus we saw early on in day two of this epic event.

Early exits included Josh Arieh, who was out in the first ten minutes of action today. Also out early was Annie Duke, who had the tough moment of the tournament so far, when her Kings ran into David Williams' Aces. Since David's Mom was sitting right behind him, you got the sense that no King was coming. Wrong. Good news for Annie: King on the river, bad news for Annie: There was a 10m J, and Q on the board also, and the King gave Williams a straight, and sent Annie straight for the door.

The YES!!!........DOH!!! award goes to Michael Hauptmann, who saw the 9 of hearts on the river, making four hearts on the board, and Michael thought he had outdrawn his opponent, and let out a "yes!", and gave the table a pound. His opponent, who had made a heart flush on the turn was also happy, as the 9 of hearts gave him a straight flush, and Hauptmann was from ecstasy to agony in one second.

Some name players made big moves early, as Grinder won two huge pots in the first level of play, and was chip leader with over 700,000 chips early. Also moving early was Greg Raymer, who moved in on Made Andersen with an open ended straight draw, and got there on the turn. Mads had an overpair, and was not overjoyed at his bad luck. Gus Hansen was sweating him, and they had some choice words in Danish about the situation...Unfortunately, my Danish translator is broken, though I doubt the words they were using were in the dictionary.

April 25, 2005

Poker News: World Poker Tour - Championship, Day Three